These 5 speeds that people speak of, are they manual or automatic? ?

 

I have settled on 6:1 reels for all cranking needs.  

6.3 works for me 

2 hours ago, jbrew73 said:

These 5 speeds that people speak of, are they manual or automatic? ?

Paddles on the steering wheel and barely 100 horses...

When I started diving plugs a “high speed” bait casting reel like Ambassador 5000C was 4.3:1. Today that same reel would be a 300 size and spool diameter and width is very important as it affects IPL (inches per handle full turn).

Todays reel have smaller diameter narrow width spools to reduce size and weight. You want a crank bait reel to move the line 20”-24” throughout the cast, any faster and most deep divers tend to turn sideways and have very high water resistance making it difficult to go any faster.

Consider that a 100 to 200 size casting reel loose about 40% of the IPT after casting 40 yards. 300 size casting reel with larger diameter wider spool may loose 10% IPT, size matters.

Ideally a 300 size reel with 5.1 to 5.8:1 with 24 IPT full spool.

Tom

PS, you want to learn deep diving crank baits....troll them.

Those lower gears 5:1 sure are nice on those big deep divers.  Some guys from here steered me to the Daiwa Tatula 150 PG.  Ended up getting a second on.  Now I want to get one the of the 6.3:1 Tatual 150s for smaller baits like 5XDs and DT10s & DT14s.